It is often desirable to alert pedestrians to conditions caused by floor maintenance. For instance, while a waxed floor is drying people that tread on the floor will mar the uniform coating if they do not detour around the treated area. Custodians will typically place a self-standing sign on the floor with an appropriate message for passersby alerting them to the need to stay off of the wet floor. Signs in common use include messages such as “Wet Floor,” “Detour,” and “Area Closed For Cleaning.”
Use of floor signs, though, is not limited to janitorial situations. Construction activities frequently make it desirous to post a sign alerting traffic to conditions caused by the construction. Likewise, law enforcement and other emergency respondents frequently need to cordon off areas for temporary access control. Moreover, entertainment events (or any gathering where large numbers of attendees may be unfamiliar with their surroundings) often create the need to provide pedestrians with messages directing them to their destination. Furthermore, the messages to be conveyed may change over time or with circumstances. All of these applications, and others, call for the use of self-standing signs to convey appropriate messages to individuals in particular areas.
Others have attempted to provide multi-use signs in the past. One attempt provided a sign that includes a center rod bisecting the sign and multiple panels each containing one half of a message. These half-message panels are connected to the rod by an ear lying perpendicular to the plane defined by the panel. Thus, to form one message, these earlier signs require the cooperation of a front of one half-message panel and the back of another, adjacent, half-message panel.
Still other prior attempts at providing multi-use signs have provided a single sign extension affixed to the sign and extending vertically therefrom. However, because these extensions increase the overall height of the sign, the sign is more cumbersome to handle. Additionally, because the extension is affixed to the sign, changing the message on the extension requires disassembly of the sign. Accordingly, changing the message requires time and effort. Moreover, the extensions may become separated from the sign and misplaced. Furthermore, because the message on the original sign is fixed, it is possible that any given extension may carry a message that conflicts with the message of the original sign. Accordingly, some extensions may be incompatible with some signs.
Thus, a need exists to provide signs that are capable of selectively conveying multiple messages without requiring cumbersome techniques to change the displayed message.